Monday, 15 October 2012

It's a romantic comedy about Amber, a broke temp working in a catering firm in London, who after years of scrounging free wine from wacky art gallery openings with her best friend Farrell, decides there’s no reason she can’t become a conceptual artist herself.

I'll be posting 2 chapters to begin with and then one chapter per week.

There comes a point in your life when
you can’t go on being scared. For me that point comes regularly, most often
after my third glass of free wine. I say ‘free’ because I do most of my
drinking at posh gallery openings. I stand in the middle of them, look around
me at all the glamorous individuals muttering appreciatively and I pretend I’m
in my natural environment. I pretend I’m an art collector and select pieces for
my many rooms in my many mansions, and then I get the bus home.

If Londoners complain that booze is too
expensive it’s because they’re not making the effort to track down the free
stuff. There must be a show opening every evening of the week in this city and
as long as you can stomach a bit of pretentious chatter then you can succeed in
having an entertaining and cheap night out.

My partner in crime tonight is my best
friend Farrell. He works part-time in a book shop and is as broke as I am.
Pretending to acknowledge the striking composition of a randomly placed chair
or the depth of meaning of some paint-splattered
socks suspended from the ceiling is a small sacrifice to pay for a few
complimentary beverages. We’d volunteer our comments if it meant getting free
nibbles, but unfortunately the art industry seems to survive on a liquid diet
only. And also no one particularly wants our comments.

Tonight the artist’s chosen materials
are thick paint and reclaimed plywood. Plywood which has been reclaimed from
skips, though judging by the state of them I’d be more inclined to say
reclaimed from war zones. It’s the most traditional exhibition we’ve seen in ages. There’s
still a concept thrown in though; there’s always got to be a concept typed up and displayed on a wall to be mulled
over for months to come.Farrell and I prefer to make them up as we walk around.

A lot of strange things make it into
galleries. Frankly I don’t know what went wrong with creating something you
might actually want to put in your living room. I like landscapes but a
landscape in the world of conceptual art could be anything from a peanut on a
stick to a video of a talking meringue.

The show is called Life & Death of a Ghost and is made up of five paintings on
rough sheets of plywood and a stuffed chicken. The artist, who goes by the name
of ‘Ghost’ has only used two colours, grey and green. Contrary to what you’d
expect, the greener the subject the more dead they are supposed to be. The
chicken is a grey lump. This means the chicken is alive. And yet it is stuffed.

Friday, 5 October 2012

I'm so happy to be able to share with you the final edit of the Shopgirl Blog Film. It stars Katy Wix (Not Going Out) as Shopgirl and Annette Badland (Torchwood) as Mum. It also features a cameo by Blake Harrison (Inbetweeners).For the background story you can read the blog post I wrote not long after we shot the film in my Mum's chandelier shop, 'ShopGirl: Take 1, Camera, Action!'

A massive thanks to all the crew and cast who made it possible. It was a great experience and I'm thrilled with the result. Signed copies of my book 'Shop Girl Diaries' are available to order from My Books.

Thursday, 4 October 2012

Once
I’d decided to take on the challenge to write a serialised novel I knew I
needed a book trailer. Words aren’t enough anymore. Writers need to know how to
use images, audio and special effects to promote their work.

The
problem is I had no idea how to make a video.

I
spent a whole Sunday fiddling about with Windows Movie Maker and had nothing to
show for it at the end.

‘You’re
not supposed to know how to make one,’ my husband said, trying to make me feel
better about what I felt was a complete and utter waste of a day.

But
I wanted to know!

'I'm not aiming for an Oscar!' I said. 'Just a basic video with pictures moving to a bit of music...'

Do
you often hear yourself saying, ‘I’m not technically-minded’? Do you say it
when you secretly want to be
technically- minded? Well,
don’t say it anymore because the more you say
it the harder it will be to change. Open up to the possibility and you might just surprise yourself!

Thanks
to Paul Carroll’s article in Writing Magazine, I learnt about Kevin Macleod and FMA (Free Music
Archive) where I could browse through thousands of tunes to use for my video.

Great! I had music but no pictures.

I
realised after that frustrating Sunday that I was never going to find free
pictures to illustrate the idea I had in my head.

Not
willing to be defeated, I began to draw.

I
only draw once a year usually and that’s in August just before my Dad’s
birthday. He’s been collecting my homemade cards since I was little and they
make him so happy that I can’t possibly stop now.

Step
1 I drew

Step
2 I scanned the drawing into my computer

Step
3 I edited them in Paint (colouring in with a mouse can be very tedious so background
music is essential, a glass of wine helps too).

Step 4 I added pictures to the easy-to-use timeline.Paint
is old-school I know, but I wasn’t going to wait around until I’d learned
Photoshop. You've got to start somewhere.

I
loved making it and although it’s not very polished or professional, I think it
captures the mood I’ve been in since starting Spray Painting Bananas: Upbeat
and happy!

My
first chapter should be out on Monday 15th October on wattpad.com –
so sign up and come find me!